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Asia Essay, Research Paper

Asia

Asia is the
largest of all the continents and includes within its limits an area
of 17,159,995 sq mi, or about 33% of the world’s total land surface
and the greater part of the Eurasian land mass. The border between
Europe is traditionally drawn as an imaginary zigzag line passing
down the spine of the Ural Mountains and through the Caspian Sea,
Caucasus Mountains, and Black Sea. The boundary dividing Asia and
Africa is generally placed along the Suez Canal, and the boundary
between Asia and Australasia is usually placed between the island of
New Guinea and Australia.

Asia is by far
the most populous of all the continents, with an estimated population
in 1992 of 3,275,200,000, or more than 60% of the world’s total
population. The population is, however, diverse and divided by
language, race, religion, politics, economics, and cultural origins
into a complex cultural mosaic.

The nations of
Asia are usually grouped into five main geographical and
political-cultural subdivisions:

5. Central and
North Asia, which includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, plus Asian Russia (Siberia)
and three of the five autonomous regions of China (Inner Mongolia,
Sinkiang-Uighur, Tibet)

LAND AND
RESOURCES

Topography

The topography
of Asia comprises of a series of high mountain belts, which are the
dominant land forms, and a related complex of plateaus, basins,
island arcs, and alluvial lowlands. The highest point is Mount
Everest, which towers to 29,028 ft in Nepal; the lowest point is
1,296 ft below sea level along the shores of the Dead Sea in Israel
and Jordan. The Ural Mountains on the western edge of Asia trend in a
north-south direction, but most other belts extend across the
continent in a general west-east direction and converge in a knot of
high mountains in the Pamirs, located where the borders of
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, China, and Afghanistan come together. West of
the Pamirs, two main mountain belts are discernible. The southern one
crosses the island of Cyprus, enters the mainland to form the Taurus
Mountains along the southern edge of Turkey, swings along the
southern edge of the Iranian Plateau to form the Zagros Mountains,
and on into Pakistan before turning north to become the Hindu Kush
and join the Pamirs. The northern mountain belt in Asia west of the
Pamirs enters the continent at the Crimean Peninsula, swings eastward
to form the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian seas,
continues south of the Caspian Sea as the Elburz Mountains of Iran
and the Kopet Mountains on the Iran-Azerbaijan border, and crosses
into Afghanistan to merge with the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs.

East of the
Pamirs, three mountain belts are discernible. One belt trends
northeastward toward the Pacific Ocean and forms the Alai Range in
Kyrgyzstan, the Tian Shan (Tien Shan) and Da Hinggan (Greater
Khinghan) Range in China, the Altai Mountains in Kazakhstan, and the
Sayan, Yablonovy, and Stanovoi mountains in Russia. A second mountain
belt, located farther south, extends eastward from the Pamirs to form
the Kunlun Mountains, Astin Tagh, and Nan Shan in China. This belt
continues across the middle of China, separating North China from
South China, as the Qin Ling (Tsinling).

The third and
most southerly of the mountain belts radiating eastward from the
Pamirs turns southeastward to form the Karakoram Range and the
Himalayas and then abruptly southward at the eastern end of the
Tibetan Plateau, where it splits into lesser ranges that continue
southward as the Arakan Yoma in Burma, the mountainous rib of the
Malay Peninsula, and the Annam Mountains (Annamitic Cordillera) in
Vietnam.

Numerous
plateaus and structural basins are located within or along the
margins of these mountain ranges. The highest is the Tibetan Plateau,
which has an average elevation of over13,000 ft and is bordered by
some of the world’s highest mountains, including the Himalayas on
the south, the Karakoram on the west, and the Kunlun Mountains on the
north. This entire complex of high mountains and plateaus is often
referred to as the “roof of the world.” To the north of Tibet are
three important Chinese basins: the Qaidam (Tsaidam) Basin, the Tarim
Basin , and the Junggar (Dzungarian) Basin.

Also important
to China are the Sichuan (Szechwan, or Red) Basin, located in the
western province of Sichuan; the Gobi Plateau, a vast, semidesert
upland located in Mongolia and China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous
Region and the Loess Plateau, located south of the Gobi, which is
covered with an immense thickness of windblown loess deposits derived
from the Gobi. Other plateaus in Asia are the Anatolian Plateau, in
Turkey; the Arabian Plateau, mainly in Saudi Arabia; the Deccan
Plateau, in peninsular India; and the Vitim and Aldan plateaus, in
Russia.

Numerous
islands, arranged in a series of arcs, fringe the Southeast Asian and
Pacific coasts of the continent. The islands of the Southeast Asian
archipelago pick up the main trend lines of Burma’s Arakan Yoma and
continue them through the Andaman and Nicobar islands of India and
the islands of Sumatra, Java, and Bali in the Indonesian archipelago.
Near Bali the main trend of the mountainous belt splits into two
segments. One segment continues eastward through the islands of
Timor, the Moluccas, and New Guinea and eventually forms the
mountains of New Zealand; the other segment turns northeastward and
passes in a series of arcs through Borneo, the Philippine
archipelago, Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, and Sakhalin and the
Kuril Islands before touching the mainland in the Kamchatka Peninsula
(Russia). These island arcs are seismically active, and earthquakes
and volcanic eruptions frequently occur.

Asia’s most
extensive lowlands are located in former Soviet Asia. They are the
Western Siberian Plain, a vast, subarctic forested region located
east of the Urals, and the Kirghiz Steppe, a semiarid plain located
mainly in Kazakhstan. Other important lowlands are mainly in the
alluvial valleys and deltas developed by rivers flowing to the south
and east. The largest of the alluvial valleys is the Indo-Gangetic
Plain, located in the Indian subcontinent between the Himalayas and
the Deccan Plateau. Occupying parts of Pakistan, India, and
Bangladesh, it is drained by the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra
rivers; river water is diverted extensively across the plain for
irrigation, and the region is one of the world’s most intensively
cultivated and most densely populated places. Other Asian lowlands
are the North China Plain, its soils enriched for centuries by loess
sediments spread over the valley and deltas of the Huang He (Hwang
Ho, or Yellow River); the alluvial valleys and deltas of the Yangtze
(China), Irrawaddy (Burma), and Mekong (Cambodia) rivers; and the
Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq.

Geology

Five Asian
“shield” areas (geologically stable areas of ancient crystalline
rock) are usually recognized. They are the Arabian and Indian shields
in the south and the Tarim Basin (Seridian massif), Northern China
(the Chinese massif), and the Siberian (Angara) Shield. Great
thicknesses of sediments accumulated between these blocks of stable
rocks and were subsequently folded and uplifted in periods of
mountain building (orogenies). Asia has had a complex orogenic
(mountain-building) history. The Caldonian Orogeny occurred in the
Silurian and Devonian periods and is recorded in Asia by the Sayan
and other mountains of eastern Siberia. The Hercynian Orogeny
occurred in the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian
periods and created several mountain ranges–the Urals, Tian Shan,
Kunlun, and Qin Ling (Tsingling).

According to
plate-tectonics theory, by the close of the Permian Period, Asia,
together with the ancestral cores of all the other continents, formed
the supercontinent known as Pangaea. During the Triassic Period,
Pangaea split apart into the northern land mass of Laurasia (from
which North America, Europe, and northern Asia later developed) and
the southern land mass of Gondwanaland (from which India and the
continents of the Southern Hemisphere later developed). A large sea
called Tethys separated the two landmasses. By the end of the
Jurassic Period, Gondwanaland fragmented, and the Indian plate began
a northeastward movement. It eventually collided with and was drawn
under the edge of the Eurasian plate, and in the process Tethyan
sediments were deformed and uplifted to form the Himalayas, Tibetan
Plateau, and other high mountains of southern Asia. The African plate
moved northward and collided with Eurasia to thrust up the European
Alps and the mountains of Asia west of the Himalayas. Much later,
probably during the Miocene Epoch, rifting and seafloor spreading
created the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and Arabia split away from
Africa to form a separate plate. Earth movements occur today in the
Indonesian, Japanese, Philippine, and other Pacific island arcs; in
these areas there is widespread seismic and volcanic activity,
attesting to the geological instability of the region.

Climate

Three broad
climatic realms may be distinguished in Asia. They are: monsoon Asia,
dry Asia, and cold Asia.

1. Monsoon Asia

The climate of
South, Southeast, and East Asia is strongly influenced by the
immensity of the Asian land mass, the barrier presented by its great
highland core, and the monsoon wind system. In summer, the
continental interior of Asia heats up rapidly as a result of
increased isolation as the overhead sun moves toward the Tropic of
Cancer. Warm air above the heart of Asia rises and creates
low-pressure centers. The air pressures above the Pacific and Indian
oceans are relatively high. Consequently, strong, moisture-laden
winds are drawn inland from the oceans into the low-pressure areas of
Asia, bringing heavy rainfall wherever they are forced to rise up
over low hills, mountains, or other topographic obstacles. The summer
monsoon in India interrupts a very hot, dry spell. Elsewhere in
Southeast and East Asia the break is not as dramatic, but rainfall in
all of monsoon Asia is concentrated in the summer months. In the
coastal region of East Asia, tropical cyclones (typhoons) bring
additional precipitation and devastating winds.

In winter, the
land surface in the interior of Asia cools off more rapidly than the
surrounding oceans. As a result, cold descending air currents over
the heart of Asia generate high-pressure centers facing the
relatively low-pressure zones over the Indian and Pacific oceans,
where temperatures are higher. From October to about April, cold,
dry, continental winds blow offshore from inland Asia. This is the
season of the winter monsoon.

Places exposed
to the monsoons are warmer in summer and colder in winter than places
in corresponding latitudes not under their influence. They are also,
for the most part, the wettest parts of Asia.

Within this
large monsoon area, important temperature differences exist between
north and south. An equatorial climate predominates over much of
Indonesia and Malaysia; average annual temperature is about 70
degrees F and average annual rainfall more than 80 in. North of the
equatorial region is a tropical monsoon area, in which summers are
hot and humid (average temperatures over 80 degrees F) and winters
cool (50 degrees F) and dry. Rainfall is more than 50 in). Climates
in the rest of monsoon Asia range from warm temperate in central
China and southern Japan to cool temperate in northern China and
Japan. Similarly, the length of the growing season, which is the
period between killing frosts in the warm half of the year, decreases
gradually from almost a full year in Indonesia to about four months
in China’s northeast.

2. Dry Asia

Parts of
Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Mongolia have a wide range of dry
climates that range latitudinally from the tropical deserts of the
Arabian Peninsula in the west to the subtropical steppe climate
present in Iran and Afghanistan and the mid latitude steppe and
deserts of Mongolia and northern China. Rainfall varies from a low of
less than 1 in in parts of the Gobi Desert to 8 in in Central Asia.
Throughout this belt, rainfall is extremely unpredictable. The
eastern coastal fringe of the Mediterranean Basin (the Levant) has a
typical Mediterranean climate and receives rain in winter; average
annual precipitation along this Western edge of dry Asia is about 20
in.

3. Cold Asia

Most of Asian
Russia has a cold climate. The southern regions have a subarctic
climate, where summers are mild (70 degrees F) and short, lasting for
less than four months. Rainfall decreases from about 20 inches in
coastal locations to less than 10 in in the interior. The extreme
northern section of Asia is dominated by the polar tundra climate,
where the low year-round temperatures (warmest month averages below
50 degrees F) create a permanently frozen subsoil known as
permafrost.

Drainage

The major rivers
of Asia, that is, those reaching the sea, include the Ob, Yenisei,
and Lena, which flow northward to the Arctic Ocean; the Amur, Huang
He, and Yangtze (the world’s third-longest river, after the Nile
and the Amazon), which drain eastward to the Sea of Okhotsk, Yellow
Sea, and East China Sea, respectively, all coastal seas of the
Pacific Ocean; the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra rivers, which flow
southward toward the Indian Ocean; the Mekong, Irrawaddy, and
Salween, which rise in eastern Tibet and drain southward through the
peninsulas of Southeast Asia; and the Tigris and Euphrates system,
which flows into the Persian Gulf, an arm of the Indian Ocean. In
addition, about 5,000,000 sq mi of land in Central Asia are drained
by rivers that do not reach the sea. This is the internal, or inland,
drainage area of Asia. The Ili flows into Lake Balkhash; the Syr
Darya and the Amu Darya into the Aral Sea; and the Ural River into
the Caspian Sea. Others are intermittent streams, which flow only
after heavy rains; their waters evaporate in the deserts, and some
end in salt lakes or playas, which may be dry part of the year.

The Dead Sea, a
saltwater lake whose shore is the lowest point on Earth, is fed by
the Jordan River. The Caspian Sea, also saline and the world’s
largest inland body of water, loses more water by evaporation than it
receives from streams and precipitation. The Aral Sea, about175 mi to
the east, is also saline and once covered a much larger area. Lake
Baikal in southern Siberia is the world’s deepest lake (5,712 ft)
and has only one outlet, the Angara River. The waters of Lake Baikal
are fresh.

Soils

Soil types
correspond closely to their respective climatic and natural
vegetation regions. In the permafrost region of northern Asia are
tundra soils, unusable for agriculture because of the short growing
season and impeded drainage but otherwise rich in organic matter.
South of the tundra, in the vast coniferous forest region of cold
temperate Asia, are podzols with high acidity and low organic
content. Farther south, in the zone of mixed coniferous and deciduous
forests, the gray brown forest soils have higher humus content and
are less acidic than the podzols. Between the temperate forests of
northern Asia and the deserts of Central Asia a belt of chernozem and
chestnut soils appears. These black to dark-brown soils are very rich
in humus and mineral nutrients and are very productive when farmed.
The desert and mountain soils of dry Asia have little to offer for
agricultural production. Even where irrigation is possible, a danger
of salt and alkali accumulation in the topsoil exists resulting from
the evaporation of mineralized underground water through capillary
action. Consequently, cultivation in dry Asia is confined to
well-drained alluvial soils along major river valleys.

The soils of
hot, humid monsoon Asia belong to the major soil category known as
pedalfers. These soils are rich in iron and aluminum material. High
temperatures promote rapid oxidation and contribute to their reddish
or yellowish appearance. Heavy rainfall washes soluble mineral and
organic matter from the topsoil to the subsoil, leaving insoluble
minerals, such as aluminum, in the topsoil. These tropical red earths
are generally infertile, and therefore agriculture in monsoon Asia is
confined mostly to alluvial soils along river valleys. Some prominent
exceptions exist: soils developed on basic volcanic ash in the
northeastern Deccan Plateau (India) and in Java are among the richest
soils in monsoon Asia.

Vegetation

Much of the
original green cover in monsoon Asia has been replaced by secondary
growth or farmlands as a result of centuries of cultivation. Even in
the equatorial region of Southeast Asia periodic burning by shifting
cultivators has greatly reduced the extent of tropical rain forest,
and tropical deciduous forests dominate what little forest area
remains. These forests yield valuable tropical hardwoods, such as
teak, sal, ironwood, and bamboo.

In dry Asia
limited vegetation, such as short grasses, will occur even on the
edges of the most barren desert areas. Most of these desert plants
are xerophytic (drought resistant) and halophytic (salt tolerant).
More significant vegetation occurs where ground water is available
near the surface.

Separating cold
Asia from dry Asia is an extensive band of low grasslands called the
steppe. Steppe vegetation predominates in Mongolia, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. North of the steppe land is a narrow
transition zone of mixed forest. Farther to the north lies the vast
expanse of coniferous forest known as taiga in Russia. The taiga is a
rich storehouse of commercially valuable needle leaf softwoods, such
as spruce, larch, fir, and pine. Even farther north, lichens, mosses,
and occasional dwarf willows manage to survive in the cold tundra.

Animal Life

Arctic animals,
although noted for their mobility, are even less diverse than arctic
plants. Polar bears, mouse like lemmings, reindeer, and arctic foxes
are common animals in the tundra region. The mammals and birds of
subarctic Asiatic Russia are of the cold, hardy type. Examples are
the Altai elk, brown bear, wolf, ermine, sable, and the erne (a
Siberian eagle similar to the bald eagle). Birds are prominent
vertebrates in Asian deserts. Animals peculiar to dry Asia include
the kuland (Mongolian wild ass), the Bactrian camel, the saiga (an
antelope), the Tibetan antelope, the kiang, the yak, the argali (wild
sheep), and the markhor (wild goat). In East Asia are found such
indigenous animals as the takin, bharal (wild Himalayan sheep), goral
(a rock goat), musk deer, sika, Thor-old’s deer, Pere David’s
deer, panda, Asiatic black bear, and high-altitude salamanders.
Tigers and elephants are still found in some southern parts of the
continent.

Mineral
Resources

Asia’s coal
deposits are the largest in the world. About one-fourth of the
world’s total reserves are located in Russia; other coal reserves
occur in nearly every province of China, in Indonesia, in India, in
Korea, in Kyrgyzstan, and in Uzbekistan. In 1991, China ranked 1st in
world coal production and India 5th. Nearly half of the coal
extracted in the former USSR, which ranked 3d in world production in
1991, is mined in Russia. Asia also has vast oil deposits, especially
in the Persian Gulf area; in the South China and Yellow seas and
other parts of the continental shelf off the coasts of East,
Southeast, and South Asia; and in Russia, with smaller deposits in
Turkmenistan. The former USSR ranked 1st among world crude-oil
producers in 1991, Saudi Arabia 2nd, Iran 4th, and China 5th; the
United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Kuwait, Egypt, Oman, Malaysia,
India, Iraq, Syria, and Qatar are also significant producers. Nearly
one-third of the world’s natural gas reserves are located in
Russia, although marketing difficulties limited production there
before the construction of a pipeline in the 1980s that enabled
Russia to supply Western Europe as well as to increase domestic
supplies.

Iron ore is
abundant in China, which ranked 2d in world production in 1989, and
in India, which ranked 6th. Tin is widely distributed in Southeast
Asia, with Malaysia and Indonesia ranking among the top world
producers. Asia also has large deposits of bauxite and a variety of
other minerals, including major world deposits of chromium,
manganese, mercury, selenium, tellurium, tungsten, zinc, graphite,
magnesite, mica, pyrite, and talc. Japan, although it is the
industrial giant in Asia, has few of the mineral resources needed for
modern industry and must import them.

Water Resources

Irrigation
canals crisscross the Indo-Gangetic Plain, Yangtze Valley, and other
alluvial lowlands of monsoon Asia. Irrigation during the dry season
of the monsoon makes possible a double and triple cropping of land
where year-round temperatures are warm enough and has been a major
factor in the ability of Asia’s river valleys to support such large
population clusters. Irrigation and the availability of ground water
for growing crops in oases are also major factors in the settlement
and economic development of most of dry Asia in the southwest. Rivers
remain the primary means of transportation for most Asian countries
outside Japan. Road and rail facilities are generally limited,
although India’s network is extensive.

Only a small
part of the continent’s vast hydroelectric power potential has been
developed, most of it in such fuel-deficient nations as Japan and
Bangladesh or as part of a larger program of river improvements as in
the Indus and Mekong river basin projects. Rivers with enormous
hydroelectric potential are the Yangtze, Ob, Lena, and Yenisei.

Farming

Only about 17%
of all Asia excluding the former USSR is planted in crops and only
14% of all Asia including the former USSR. India has the most arable
land, with 403,629,000 acres, or 50% of its total area, under
cultivation. China ranks second, with 255,070,000 acres, or 11% of
its total area, under crops; and Turkey a poor third, with 67,739,000
acres, or 35% of its total area, under crops. Other large arable
landholdings are in Iran, which has 50,002,000 acres, or 12% of its
total area, under crops; Indonesia, which has 47,938,000 acres, or
10% of its area, cultivated; and Pakistan, which has 42,219,000
acres, or 24% of its total area, planted to crops.

Forest and Fish
Resources

Forests cover
about one-third of Russia and 20% of the rest of Asia. Russia has the
largest reserves of commercial softwoods in the world (mostly east of
the Urals) and leads the world in timber production. Deciduous
forests are extensive in southern Asia, especially in the tropical
and subtropical parts of monsoon Asia. Indonesia and India together
account for half of all Asian woods cut from deciduous forests. In
the wake of industrialization, however, deforestation is occurring in
South and Southeast Asia, as it had earlier in China.

Japan and Russia
are the world’s two top-ranking fish producers, and both maintain
large oceangoing fishing fleets. China is the third-ranking fish
producer, and India is fourth. In keeping with the intensive
cultivation of land in Asia, fish are also raised in flooded rice
fields.

PEOPLE

Traditional
Culture Areas

Asia has a long
cultural heritage of great diversity. Sedentary agriculture and the
beginnings of urban life and civilization developed before 4000 BC in
Mesopotamia (southwestern Asia), about 3000 BC at Harappa and
Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley, now in Pakistan , and about 2000 BC
in the unrelated development of Chinese culture in the loess lands of
China’s middle Huang He valley . These three areas of early
civilization served as “culture hearths,” or centers from which
major cultural traditions, modified by later differences in religion,
nationalism, and historical circumstance, were transferred outward
and adopted over wide areas of Asia (and sometimes beyond).

Six major
cultural regions are recognized in Asia. The three dominant ones are
Southwest (or Islamic) Asia, South (or Indic) Asia, and East (or
Sinic) Asia, which developed from the three original culture hearths.
The fourth is Southeast Asia. Set between China and India, this
region is what political and cultural geographers call a “shatter
zone,” or culture area dominated by two or more strong neighboring
cultures. The remaining two culture areas are Northern (or Russian)
Asia and Central (or Interior) Asia, both sparsely populated and
peripherally located in terms of the major culture hearths.

Southwest (or
Islamic) Asia roughly coincides with the dry belt of desert and
semidesert lands that extend eastward from the eastern Mediterranean
(Levant) shores as far as Afghanistan. This area is customarily
linked with North Africa under the labels Near or Middle East or Arab
World; the latter is misleading, however, because non-Arabs
constitute a majority of the population in Iran, Israel, and Turkey.
The Southwest Asian culture area saw the development of early
agriculture in Mesopotamia and the rise and fall of numerous ancient
kingdoms and empires. It was unified by Islam in the 7th century, but
important concentrations of non-Islamic peoples remain, including
Christians in Syria, Armenia, and Lebanon, and Jews, mainly in
Israel.

South (or Indic)
Asia is located on the Indian subcontinent and dominated by India.
The culture dates from about 1500 BC when Aryans invaded northern
India. Their Vedic religion merged with indigenous customs and
beliefs to produce Hinduism, which continues to play a major role in
social organization and structure; it remains an important influence
even in northern areas where Islam now prevails. Buddhism, founded in
India in the 6th century BC, had its main cultural impact elsewhere.

The nations
included in East (or Sinic) Asia share a common culture developed by
the ancient Chinese in the Huang He loesslands and unified during the
Shang dynasty about 1500 BC. Periodically invaded by nomads from the
northern steppes, the East Asian culture region included most of
modern China by about 100 BC, began to move southward into Vietnam
about the same time, and reached out to Korea and Japan about AD 400.
Social organization and structure within the region are strongly
influenced by ancient Chinese concepts of familial duty and ancestor
worship that were articulated in Confucianism and Japanese Shinto,
and to a lesser degree in Daoism (Taoism) and Chinese Buddhism.

Southeast Asia
embraces the peninsulas and islands located between India and China.
The indigenous peoples of this region were pushed from the lowlands
into isolated hill areas by migrants from China and the rest of Asia
in a process beginning 2,500 years ago. Buddhism became the dominant
religion, but Islamic influences, brought by Arab traders after the
12th century AD, and colonial penetrations by the British, French,
Dutch, Spanish, and Americans after the 17th century brought much
cultural diversification.

North Asia
(Asiatic Russia) borders on Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China to the
south and extends northward across Siberia to the shores of the
Arctic Ocean. The Russians brought European influences into North
Asia and the steppe regions to their south from the 17th century on.

Central (or
Inner) Asia is made up of five former Soviet republics–Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan–plus Mongolia
and three autonomous regions of China–Tibet, Xinjiang-Uygur, and
Inner Mongolia. Isolated by high mountains or broad deserts, Central
Asia was for centuries the domain of nomadic herders and various
indigenous peoples, including Mongols, Tatars, Tungus, and Yakuts.
Central Asia was long feared by the Chinese as the homeland from
which invaders repeatedly entered the settled lands of eastern China.
Chinese settlement and influence in much of this region has greatly
increased in recent years. Islamic influences have gained strength in
much of former Soviet Central Asia since 1991.

Racial and
Ethnic Groups

Asia has a great
diversity of ethnic groups, with two-thirds of all Asian peoples
belonging to the Mongoloid group. The largest ethnic group is the Han
Chinese, who constitute about 94% of the total population of China
and dominate the eastern half of that nation. The remaining 6% of
that nation’s population includes Mongols, Uygurs, Huis, Zhuangs,
Tibetans, and other groups. The second largest Asian group is the
Japanese, who except for a few thousand Ainu on the northern island
of Hokkaido, constitute a single ethnic group in Japan. India, by
contrast, is ethnically

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